Lydia
Lydia is a ruthless bio-engineered Spider Soldier on a mission to find new genetic material to preserve her people’s diminishing ability to reproduce and create a warrior capable of surviving the maddening effects of the Manowar Class Armor, the most powerful weapon in the universe. =Rise of Lydia= In preparation for their invasion of Earth the Spider Aliens, a race of blood-thirsty extraterrestrial arachnoids, established bases around the world hidden behind legitimate enterprises with covert operatives strategically positioned within them that answered solely to Lydia. Deceiver In an arena on an alien world far beyond the confines of the Milky Way Galaxy, a Spider Soldier garbed in X-O Wolf Armor loomed over a wounded soldier garbed in X-O Commando Armor and promised to make his end a swift one long as he yielded. Swatting his foe across the arena with a trust of his blade, the X-O Wolf mocked his foe’s helplessness against his armor and vowed that the prize would be his soon as his opponent’s juices flowed on the hallowed battleground, but then he suddenly let out a deafening shriek and collapsed. Standing up with a dagger in his hand, the Commando said that what they fought for was too important to leave to fate, so he took precautions to insure that victory would belong to him alone, then he severed the Wolf’s head and held it high for the crowd to see. A few moments later, the Commando stood before a First-Among-Equals, the aliens’ spokesbeing, who told him that they were aware that he had poisoned the warrior before the contest, and that such treachery would prove valuable for the task to come. As they walked down a long hallway and the First told him that by the rules of trial-by-combat he won the right to lead the expedition to Earth, the Commando felt honored, but then the First warned him that honor would have little place in his mission of infiltration and subjugation. Upon entering a laboratory where scientists had assembled Shanhara, a Manowar Class Armor, the First told the Commando that, as their vitality slowly diminished and their ability to reproduce dwindled, they needed new genetic material to preserve them and create a warrior capable of surviving the armor’s effects. When the Commando mentioned the rumors that Shanhara drove all who donned it mad, the First acknowledged their veracity and said that they had to instill individuality into their genetic make-up to cope with the armor’s artificial intelligence, but, once that was achieved, they could create an army capable of ensuring their continuation for millennia. When the Commando laid eyes upon Aric Dacia, a human the First told him they procured during their first scouting mission, he could not resist expressing his disgust at his appearance. While the First concurred with the Commando that Aric was a vile creature, he revealed that, as a race, they desperately needed his traits of individuality and adaptability to survive. Several days after the X-O Commando underwent an extremely painful process that altered his features into those of a human female with enhanced human sex pheromones and genetic mutagen in his venom so he would secure a base of operations and procure tests subjects for genetic experimentation once he infiltrated Earth, he departed the homeworld on a scout ship. As a soldier informed her that all was ready for launch, the Commando reminded him that his orders were to refer to her as Lydia, and warned him that if he made that mistake again she would have him flailed alive. Moments later in her quarters, Lydia keeled over a sink soon as the cabin door closed from the unbearable pain and, as she stared at her reflection in the mirror, pondered that it was difficult enough to maintain power while she looked like a hideous human and she could loose her authority altogether if she appeared weak. As the scout ship departed the Spider Alien homeworld, it accelerated to faster-than-light speeds towards its rendezvous many months later with Earth. From orbit, Lydia and her crew monitored all TV and radio broadcasts and formulated a scheme to fulfill their mandate. Several months later at the La Bas Jazz Club in New Orleans, the atmosphere of an early warm evening became exceedingly dangerous for a young man when he offered to buy Lydia a drink and she invited him to her parlor. There, as they became intimate, Lydia injected the man on the neck to inject him with a mutagen that killed him from fatal reaction. As she tossed the man’s corpse in the basement where she kept the remains of her with other failed tests, Lydia doubted that she would ever find the perfect patient zero. Later that night, while Lydia took a shower to rinse off the gore from his latest victim, a holo-transmission from her ship informed her that the armada had begun to establish a base on the far side of the moon and that homeworld had ordered that she accelerate her timetable. Confidently, Lydia reported she had been cultivating a plan that would provide them with limitless resources centered around Harold Polk, the CEO and President of Orb Industries, a powerful international conglomerate, who she had been seducing for months and, by keeping in a mildly-sedated condition with her venom, made extremely malleable to her will. When Lydia returned to New York City posing as Harold’s fiancé to impose herself into his life and usurp his power for their needs, she assassinated his business lieutenants and replaced them with her agents, Prather and Aristedes, who proceeded to bring their troops and technology to Orb facilities around the world. Two weeks, as Lydia seductively fed off Harold’s comatose corpse in his penthouse apartment, she mused that he had been the most accommodating husband on Earth, but, she feared, the time had come to move on. With Aristedes and Prather assisting her in coordinating Orb worldwide, the trio formed a powerful hierarchy for the Spider Alien network on Earth, but, privately, Lydia resented sharing her power and made a resolution to assassinate them once the time was right. As it turned out, however, time had a way of changing priorities. From their first day in orbit, technicians fed human science and history into Shanhara’s database until it held nearly the total amassed knowledge of Earth. When the time was right, the most powerful Spider warrior was to don the battlesuit and use its knowledge to defeat his human enemies, but that time would never come, as Aric Dacia, the Visigoth the Spider Aliens took in 408 AD stole the armor and returned with it to Earth. Two days later at the New York headquarters of Orb Industries in the Chrysler Building, Lydia accused Ken Clarkson, a devious effeminate schemer, of embezzling the company and warned him that she had no choice but to deal with him very harshly. Unfazed, Ken believed that Orb Industries was a front for Communists or terrorists and threatened to report them to the federal authority, but then Lydia mockingly assured him that they were far worse than he could have ever imagined and unveiled her fangs for him to see. While Ken trembled, Lydia offered to spare his life in exchange for his services and then ordered Aristedes to put Ken on a plane to Peru and have their agents herd Aric Dacia, who stole their most powerful weapon, where he could intercept him. As Aristedes escorted Ken out, Lydia said that Aric had a very valuable ring that belonged to them, and told him that after he had won his trust, he would bring the ring to her or die. =Turnaround Treachery= After Aric Dacia, a 5th Century Visigoth lost in the modern age, absconds with the Manowar Class armor and destroys the Spider Alien fleet, Lydia goes to great lengths to retrieve their missing weapon, even at the cost of her own life and that of her underlings. Into The Fire On November 3rd 1991 in the headquarters of Orb Industries in the Chrysler Building, Lydia met with Aristedes and Prather to discuss their options following the disintegration of their fleet when Aric Dacia escaped with the Manowar Class armor. While Lydia believed that they were at risk, Prather believed that they still had options and refused to lose heart, while Aristedes noted that they were more than a fleet, and even cut off they were never prey and remained the predators. Although Lydia warned Aristedes not to lecture her over how much they had left, she regretted the loss of their lifeline. Assuring Lydia that all they needed was the Manowar armor, Prather informed her that it they had tracked it to Peru, and that while Aric had the ring, he could not have gone far. While Lydia worried that long as Aric had the ring he controlled the armor, Aristedes assured her that Aric had the brain of an ox and could not conceive of what they had. Sometime later in a warehouse in Northampton, Lydia met with Aristedes, who told her that Aric was making his way towards them. While Lydia felt certain that Aric was travelling on foot and was a stupid barbarian, Aristedes worried that his trek would be long enough for him to learn more about the ring and that he had tasted power. When Aristedes told Lydia that the armor would fight to be free long as Aric was in touch with it, she agreed that they needed the ring as soon as possible and proposed a piece of treachery. Days later, while Lydia was on the phone with Malachai, a Spider Soldier, Aric destroyed a helicopter with an alien bazooka and slaughtered the aliens. As her call with Malachai abruptly ended, Lydia felt certain that Aric had fallen into her web, a belief later confirmed when Ken Clarkson called her from John F. Kennedy airport to inform her that he had brought Aric to her. While Spider Soldiers ambushed Aric and Ken, back in the Massachusetts, the Manowar armor broke loose from the confinement beam that held it in place. As Lydia exclaimed that the armor should respond to their commands because they made it, Aristedes reminded her that they designed the armor to adapt to its user, and that he warned her that Aric had tasted power. In a sudden flash of light, the armor assumed a spherical shape and broke out of the warehouse through a window. After Aric defeated the soldiers and escaped with Ken, back in New York, Prather conceded to Lydia that Aric's savagery in their best armor put them at risk and they began to plan ahead. Kingdom Come After Aric Dacia had defeated a Spider Soldier in Wolf Class armor, in the offices of Orb Industries in the Chrysler Building, Lydia reminded Prather that she told him that, even with their best bio-engineered hunter, the Wolf-class armor was no match for Manowar armor, even with an ignorant barbarian in it. As Prather said that he considered the attack a reasonable attempt to reacquire the armor, Lydia told him the time for what he deemed reasonable was past and it was time for desperate measures. Though Prather was certain that a chance would present itself to kill Aric, Lydia worried that in time he would realize the extent of the power in his grasp and kill them. Casually, Prather laughed at the idea that Lydia wanted him to risk everything in an all-out assault, but then she coldly told him he should. When Lydia asked Prather what they knew about Aric, he said that, other than being the first specimen they acquired on Earth, there was nothing remarkable about him. As she told Prather that an unremarkable man could not have done what he had, Lydia mused that Aric was a human whose frailties provided endless opportunities for treachery and told Prather to let her deal with him. Later that evening, an Orb Industries helicopter landed in a warehouse in Northampton and, as Aristedes ran to welcome it, Lydia came out and asked him if he had done as she instructed him. As Aristedes informed Lydia that they began to work as soon as he received her message, he escorted her inside and showed her the assembled firepower he had gathered within the facility. Though Lydia applauded him, Aristedes doubted that all their weapons would be a match for the Manowar armor, but then she told him that all they had to do was momentarily stun Aric and hammer open the tiniest fissure through which to inject poison, and that if they stroke with massive force, they would conquer him. When Aristedes wondered how they would lure Aric into their trap and make him hold position until they could unleash the barrage, Lydia pointed at the image of Ken on a screen and told him that their former employee, who had become Aric’s ally, was their bait. When Aristedes informed Lydia that Aric was still in Long Island, she ordered him to send in their commandos. The next morning, Aristedes informed Lydia that Aric had destroyed their base in Northern New Jersey and was moving towards Pennsylvania. Worried that Aric was not going to Massachusetts, Lydia thought it was time they spoke with Ken. Moments later, in a red room where Ken was strapped to a web of tendrils that held him upside down from the roof and walls, he sarcastically told Lydia that Aric was less simple than either of them thought. As Lydia noted that luring Aric into an ambush was risky business, she asked Ken for any suggestions on how to catch him out of the armor and unawares, but he just told her to say her prayers. While Aristedes wanted to torture Ken, Lydia did not think that he knew anything useful and said she had an idea. Later that day, Aristedes and Lydia went over the records of the scout vessel that picked Aric up nearly twenty centuries earlier and kept him in stasis for most of that time. When Aristedes noted that Aric probably thought that only a few years had passed since his abduction, Lydia instructed him to find out what his world was like in his time and find out what it would take to make him think he had won. That night in the Chrysler Building, while Aric slaughtered a contingent of Spider Soldiers garbed as Centurions, in the top floor, Lydia and Prather garbed themselves as an emperor and his queen to lure him into a trap. As two soldiers encased him in a metalloid carapace, Prather worried that it offered him scant protection against Manowar armor, but Lydia assured him that the time for desperate measures had come and that she took the greater risk as in her role she could not wear an armor. When Prater expressed doubt that their ploy would work, Lydia told him that Aric was stupid enough to believe in invisible Gods and that she lured him there with a simple directional signal and voice transmission of his name. As s soldier placed a crown on his head, Prather asked Lydia why she lured Aric to the very nerve center of their network and why she chose him, and she replied that the building would seem to Aric a proper tower for a king and that it was their duty. Ultimately, Lydia added that she would not entrust the delicacy of the deceit to anyone else. As the elevator that carried Aric to the top floor, arrived Lydia reminded Prather that Aric came from an era of empire and they would offer him a token resistance and surrender so that, once he thought he had won, the game would be hers to play. When the doors opened and Aric proceeded to slaughter the soldiers that stood between them, Lydia told Prather to brandish his sword at him and assured him that he would just take it and his scepter, but then Aric blasted his head clean off his shoulders and killed him just like she secretly expected him. After Aric claimed Prather’s scepter, Lydia ordered the captain of the guard to surrender his sword to him. As part of her charade, Lydia tossed herself at Aric’s feet to worship him, and when he ordered the aliens to bring Ken out, she ordered them to leave. When Lydia offered to bathe him, Aric removed his armor, and once there was no chance that it would translate her words, she soothingly called him by name and told him that she had studied him, and knew that, during his imprisonment on their ships, the only ones of her kind he saw were unlike humans. Insultingly, Lydia told Aric he was too primitive to imagine they could bio-genetically alter their bodies, and that those of them who conducted business on Earth could become almost indistinguishable from his kind. As she slowly caressed Aric’s neck and moved closer to it, Lydia voiced her discomfort with her human form and unveiled her alien teeth to bite him. Suddenly, Aric stabbed Lydia in the heart, and when she tried to flee, he pulled her cloak off her and she fell out the window. =Darque Pact= Following her escape from Aric Dacia, Lydia traveled to New Orleans to honor a bargain between the Spider Aliens and Master Darque, a 19th Century necromancer who promised them sanctuary in exchange of their preventing Jack Boniface, a jazz player, from gaining the Darque Power that the Coven, a group of practitioners of the mystic arts, had bestowed on him. Jazz On the evening of March 1st 1992 at the La Bas Jazz Club, Lydia watched as Jack Boniface played on the stage. When Jack asked Lydia if he could join her at her table, she said that she was hoping he would, and, as he sat down, she told him that she admired her music and had six of his CDs, so when she decided to move to New Orleans she knew she had to hear him life. When Jack told her that he had seen her there night after night but by the time he finished his set she always left, Lydia said that one never knew how relationships would turn out, then she excused herself to go to the ladies room and said that maybe he could walk her home. When she returned from the restroom, Lydia urged Jack to leave with her and hinted that she wanted to sleep with him. Later that night, in Lydia’s apartment in Le Vieux Carré, Lydia poured Jack an aperitif while he stared out at the city from the balcony and commented that it seemed made for him. After Jack drank the brew she made him, Lydia pulled him down besides her on a love seat and they vehemently kissed each other. While Jack complemented Lydia’s eyes and told her that they were deep as the night and cold as Northampton, he felt dizzy and could no longer move. Slowly, Lydia rose up and told Jack that all her people loved music, though it was only patterns of vibration to them, and she particularly loved his, but all good things had to end. As Lydia disrobed, she told Jack that it was dangerous for her to stay in New Orleans and she had to keep moving, so that night was her last change to have him. Excusing herself, Lydia drank a special cocktail that she said took a little longer to work than Jack’s did which transformed her into a horrific creature that bit Jack on the neck. Suddenly, a bright light startled Lydia, who cursed its timing before she vanished. Category: X-O Manowar Category: Characters